Thursday, November 17, 2011

The annual Holiday Train Show kicks off Saturday at the New York Botanical Garden and runs until January 16. If it were up to me, I would have the show run longer. It is worth the trip.

The show, which this year celebrates its 20th anniversary, is filled with New York landmark replicas such as the Brooklyn Bridge, Radio City Music Hall, and the original Yankee Stadium. The buildings are made with natural materials of bark, twigs, stems, fruits, seeds, and pine cones.

Due to popular demand, the show has been extended to January 16, giving visitors more time to enjoy and experience. It makes me think of the words that famed singer Nat King Cole sings in his Sweet Lorraine, “I’m as happy as baby boy with his new ChooChoo Toy." That’s how I feel every time I go to the Holiday Train Show.

This holiday season, the New York Botanical Garden is planning plenty of activities for the whole family, including a puppet show featuring the popular story “The Little Engine That Could." There will also be sing along events and photo opportunities.
Applied Imagination stationed in Alexandria, KY, is the company behind the train show. Company officials explained that Applied Imagination is a family business that started in a backyard. They were train enthusiasts.
Applied Imagination looks forward to working the Holiday Train Show every year.
While kids love the train show, company officials say they have also noticed that adults sometimes even have more fun than the kids. I'm one of those adults.
Nick Leshi, NYBG's associate director of public relations and electronics media, said the Holiday Train Show at the garden makes sense. “It’s a perfect marriage."
I think he’s right. I hope you like it as much I do. Enjoy the Holiday Train Show.
For more information, go to www.nybg.org.

Ismael Nuñez is a freelance writer based in East Harlem. He is a contributing writer to Bronx Latino.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Nuestra salud
I got this press release from Serrano's office a few days ago. I am not surprised by this report's findings at all. The South Bronx, where I live, is home to high rates of asthma and other health issues.
Washington, DC – Congressman José E. Serrano expressed his ongoing concern about the high rates of asthma in Hispanic communities across the nation as a new report was released by the American Lung Association today. The report, entitled Luchando Por El Aire: The Burden of Asthma on Hispanics, presents “an overview of research into the complex biological, environmental, political and cultural factors that increase the burden of asthma on Hispanics.” Serrano’s district in the Bronx suffers from extremely high rates of asthma and presents many of the factors that the new report highlighted.
“This important new report confirms many theories that we have been working on in fighting asthma in the Bronx—and helps us to continue to work on them with the assurance that we are headed in the right direction,” said Congressman Serrano. “We know that poor air quality and lack of access to health care services can cause a devastating combination to populations that are predisposed to asthma. Our efforts to clean the air, and ensure health care for all people will help to bring down the unacceptably high rates of asthma in our community.”
The report found that nationwide “compared to non-Hispanic whites, Hispanics with asthma are less likely to be in the care of a regular doctor or clinic; less likely to be prescribed appropriate medicines; less likely to have access to specialized care; and more likely to end up being treated in the emergency department or hospitalized in a crisis.” It also found that “Hispanics are 165 percent more likely to live in counties with unhealthy levels of particulate matter pollution, and 51 percent more likely to live in counties with unhealthy levels of ozone compared to non-Hispanic whites.”
“The findings of the report are only shocking if you have not been paying attention to the asthma crisis in our community,” added Congressman Serrano. “We know that environmental injustice exacerbates underlying health problems and so yet again we are right in our call for the burden of environmental contamination to be lifted from the Bronx. Our community has absorbed more than its fair share of the unwanted activities in our City and yet we find we continue to have to fight against new pollutant sources and to get old ones retired and remediated.”
Distressingly, Luchando Por El Aire noted that Hispanics of Puerto Rican descent, the second-largest Hispanic population in the U.S., “have higher rates of the disease than any other racial or ethnic group – twice as high as non-Hispanic whites.” Puerto Ricans, it seems, “have more underlying inflammation than other Hispanics, and respond less well to quick relief medicine.”
“Our path forward on this issue is clear: we must continue to attack the injustices that cause our community to suffer from this debilitating condition—from the environmental problems, to lack of health care access, to poverty and beyond,” Serrano concluded. “Parents in our community are suffering from a huge burden as they deal with the asthma of their children or their other loved ones. We must remove the factors that cause this condition and help those who have it to control their attacks. The situation is at a crisis level in the Hispanic community and in the Bronx in particular. I hope this new report serves as a wakeup call and a call to action.”
The full report can be accessed here: http://www.lungusa.org/lung-disease/disparities-reports/burden-of-asthma-on-hispanics/
source: press release
The question now is what will be done, I agree with Serrano that this report is a call to action. I haven't heard anything yet.